Blog by John Miller

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Freedom in blinkers

December 9th, 2012
You are about to read about a case of government secrecy so outrageous that few Canadians will believe it could ever happen here. It's a cautionary tale, illustrating how badly we need to fight back against the Harper government's determination to keep us in the dark about how it spends billions of dollars of our money. The story begins in May 2008, when I made what I thought was a reasonable ...
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The worst is here

November 22nd, 2012
Warren Buffett, whose portfolio includes newspapers, once said: "Thirty years ago if you had an idiot nephew, you bought him a newspaper to run, but it's not that easy anymore.”Wait a minute. Can't idiots still become publishers? Based on recent evidence, Buffett may have been wrong -- it still seems ridiculously easy enough. And it usually has disastrous results.We take you now to Niagara Fa ...
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Can we change?

November 13th, 2012
Why are newspaper publishers so obsessed with shooting themselves in the foot? The Toronto Star's John Cruickshank performed the feat wonderfully the other day when he announced a new subscription plan to deliver "exclusive long-form journalism" to readers on-line.Here is exactly what he said about it: "Each Star Dispatches eRead will take about 30 to 40 minutes to read and offers more insigh ...
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Circling the wagons

September 28th, 2012
Maybe it's time for The Globe and Mail to change its motto. Maybe Junius really meant to say "The subject who is unintentionally loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to oversight."First Margaret Wente unintentionally forgot a quotation mark. Then she remembered that she must have unintentionally copied something another columnist wrote. Then -- oopsy -- Globe and Mail ...
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What we learned

September 27th, 2012
One of The Globe and Mail's recently disaffected readers writes in his blog about getting a rather snarky email back from editor-in-chief John Stackhouse when he cancelled his subscription. Stackhouse told him: "You seem to prefer the smaller world of the blogosphere. Sad." Well, it ain't that sad, folks. And it sure ain't so small.Less than a week after the paper got embroiled in a scandal I ...
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Still standing?

September 25th, 2012
The Globe and Mail is arguably Canada's most respected newspaper. But judging by how it is continuing to twist itself into knots over allegations of plagiarism levelled against its most prominent columnist, it may blunder itself into history as an object lesson in how not to polish the proverbial turd.Moving to try and stanch a tsunami of derision toward his paper on social media sites, edito ...
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Wentegate

September 23rd, 2012
Carol Wainio is an artist who has exhibited widely in Canada, including at the National Gallery. She teaches Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa. In her spare time she blogs on matters of journalistic integrity. She specializes in detecting plagiarism.Sylvia Stead is the newly named public editor of The Globe and Mail. The paper says it created the position earlier this year in "an effort ...
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Four libel myths

July 20th, 2012
It's been 30 months since the Supreme Court reformed Canada's libel laws, allowing the "public interest responsible communication" defence. Has that much really changed?At the time it was hailed as a victory for freedom of expression and of the press. Journalists worried about libel chill celebrated it. But has the "responsible communication" defence actually served to protect media accused o ...
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When news sucks

July 17th, 2012
"Sucks. No news. What are you people thinking?" That's a pretty devastating initial reaction to the news website just relaunched with much fanfare by Postmedia Network Inc. But you don't know the half of it.When you consider it was supposed to be a key step in what CEO Paul Godfrey called an attempt to "create a new company for a new time,” it's a pretty sad commentary on how newspaper compan ...
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Info blockade

June 1st, 2012
Canada's information commissioner made headlines this week when she handed out low grades to most federal government departments for how they respond to requests for information from members of the public. Of the 18 departments Suzanne Legault rated, four received Cs (average), four received Ds (below average) and three gots Fs (failure). Legault warned that budget cuts could make the situati ...
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